About Enterprise Value

Enterprise Value (EV) is a valuation metric alternative to traditional market capitalization that reflects the market value of an entire business. Like market cap, EV is a measure of what the market believes a company is worth. Enterprise value captures the cost of an entire business, including debt and equity. It is a sum of claims of all preferred shareholders, debt holders, security holders, common equity holders, and minority shareholders - unlike market cap, which only captures the total value of common equity securities.

EV is considered the theoretical purchase ("takeover") price of a business because a purchaser would take on the company's debt, while pocketing the company's cash and gaining a right to all of the company's future earnings.Learn More